house/ castle of cards 

before school we built houses of cards
on the floor of the cafeteria.
all the early kids 
had to wait there 
on the cool white speckled tiles 
under heaven-blaring neon lights.
we sat in haphazard lines in front 
of our teacher's names
sharing decks while other girls 
taught each other cat's cradle.
tangles of thread
they wove themselves together.
knots of children. here is the eiffel tower
& here is the cat's hammock.
girls crawling into hammock's 
in their best friend's hands. 
i always wished someone would offer to teach me.
cards rubbed soft from small fingers
decks warped all curving slightly
like the small stone bridge
over the creek on trexler avenue. 
one morning instead of playing spit 
or war we decided we should build
houses of cards.
i watched the fifth graders
assuming they knew what to do
setting a long base for their houses
saying you have to be careful
you have to be gentle.
we all got quiet as we watched 
& i built too 
wondering why this was a house
& not a castle.
i imagined my house with 
twisty slides coming down from
all the bed rooms & escalators 
instead of stairs.
i made a canopy for my bed &
turned my window stained glass.
i forgot where i was 
& the house of cards touched
the high ceiling of the cafeteria
right under the whining neon.
cards after cards after cards
i had taken all the decks & as 
the house grew i became part of it.
so high up that the school was nothing
& the cafeteria was a wild street
& i had built myself a house.
i was briefly less jealous 
of the girls with their fingers 
woven together & the girl sleeping in
a string hammock.
i was the girl who built 
herself up past the ceiling.
i would not come down despite 
the pleas of the lunch ladies 
& the homeroom teachers 
& eventually the principal 
who out her hands on her hips 
& called me a young lady but
i was not negotiating. 
i came down all at once when 
a fifth grade boy suggested they 
just pull a card from the bottom level.
a simple gesture took the whole house
down & from inside i watched
book cases topple & the slides
fall off & roll away.
a girl in a pile of cards
getting up to follow her homeroom.
the ghost of the house lingering.
in class we learned the pythagorean theorem
& all i could see in the triangles
was the slats that made up
my giant structure.